Deathberry Racket
by Thorn In Your Side
Summary: The hollow knew there was more than one kind of dominance. "I should rape you." Zangetsu learns to deal with sharing Ichigo's head, and the hollow learns to deal with Zangetsu.


**Deathberry Racket**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. **

**A/N: This didn't pan out the way I intended it to; it's a lot better for that. **

**So-and-so no danna is the appropriate way, I understand it, to address one's husband. Naruto and Okane ga Nai concur. :D**

**A yukata is a lightweight sort of kimono worn on festivals. **

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

Zangetsu's desperate pants nauseated himself. Oh, how the mighty fell: he who had once had the ability to crush the hollow Ichigo under one toe was now being hunted by him. The tall buildings that filled Ichigo's subconscious had become an unfriendly labyrinth to be traversed with fear. The old man clutched a fist to his heart and willed it calm, his mouth hanging open for air.

"Zangetsu-san, don't you ever get bored of playing hide-and-go-seek?" the hollow's voice was too close for comfort. Zangetsu lurched free of his hiding place, one arm dangling uselessly at his side: Berry-tan had broken it the last time they'd clashed.

"I mean personally I get a kick out of it, for a while. But to continue a game for so long…haven't you gone and killed it?"

This wasn't a _**game, **_dammit. Zangetsu was fighting for his life. Possibly Ichigo's as well—if the hollow took over, how could one fifteen year old boy stand up to him?

"In that case…shouldn't I go ahead and kill you?"

The messy haired man ducked into a skyscraper marginally taller than the rest. He kicked the double wooden doors shut behind him and headed through the foyer and up the stairs. A sudden—noise? Or a feeling—made him look up ad then the dark strawberry leapt, sword high in the air and eyes blazing. Zangetsu grunted as the impact of this (Ichigo? Not-Ichigo. Deathberry) thing's body against his own sent them tumbling down the well-lit stairs, ending in the foyer where the doors Zangetsu kicked shut were ajar, sunshine cascading through the open frame.

"Looks like he's happy, doesn't it?" Deathberry (what, we're sticking with that? Of all things…) said nonchalantly as he put a foot to hold down Zangetsu. The brunet was on his stomach, his injured arm trapped under him and the good one splayed out, grappling with the ground to get up. The hollow continued to be riveted by the sunlight.

"So sunny and bright…perfect, white clouds in the sky…and the innards of these buildings are so freakin' grand." A convoluted smile convulsed on his dead lips. "Our little Ichigo's in a really good mood from having saved that Rukia chick, isn't he?"

Zangetsu bucked in response. Deathberry glanced down and grinned. Dropping his sword arm he sat on the man's back, one leg on either side of Zangetsu and his hands pressed into his shoulders.

"I played well, didn't I, Zangetsu-san? Or maybe it's just that you suck so fuckin' much at it now. Why the hell didn't you crush me when you had the chance? I _**told **_you all of Ichigo's mind—and his body—would be mine one day. You were way stronger than me back then. You underestimated me, didn't you? You didn't think I was a threat." The hollow heaved a theatrical sigh. "What am I going to do with you, Zangetsu-san?"

The old man wasn't sure.

"Aren't you going to kill me?"

Deathberry leaned back, his face pulling in a way to suggest that he found the idea repulsive. "Don't be mad. In a head as empty as this," an insult to Ichigo! "You and I are the only people. If I kill you, the aloneness will kill me." The grey lips hitched up in a smile again. "Isn't that why _**you **_failed to kill me, Zangetsu-san? It had nothing to do with whether I was a threat or not. Facing the rain is easier when you have company. Even if the company is scum like me."

Yes. That was true. Zangetsu hated the rain.

…And he'd made a promise to Ichigo.

He'd said, "As long as you trust me, I will never let a drop of rain fall from that sky again."

To fulfill that promise, he needed to stay alive. Stay dominant. Deathberry must not win!

"I like the expression on your face, Zangetsu-san," the hollow hissed, "It tells me you haven't given up. How fierce!"

All bark and no bite. Scary faces seldom won battles. Zangetsu's glasses cracked from the force with which Deathberry pushed his nose into the ground.

"How am I going to wipe that expression off your face, Zangetsu-san?" the too-strong demon asked the soul cutter spirit, "How will you learn how weak you've become?"

Zangetsu let out a groan. Deathberry thought he might already know, but felt the need to drive the point home. He slid a hand under the man's jaw to tilt it up, bringing his mouth to the red, tortured ear.

"I should rape you."

"What," Zangetsu choked on the word.

Deathberry let his head to sprawl luxuriantly on the brunet's back. "Or maybe I shouldn't. You'd feel so awkward to talk to me afterwards. As I'm only keeping you for the company, I might regret it."

And then Zangetsu's load lightened; the hollow knelt in front of him to cradle his chin.

"I've got an idea. Zangetsu-san, you should become my wife."

What. What, what, what, what, _**what.**_

"You can learn to say 'danna', can't you?"

….(!) Call Deathberry 'master', like a housewife of fifty years ago addressing her new husband? It was a joke. It was such a bad joke.

"I might have some trouble calling you 'wifey', though. Such a noble, masculine face, Zangetsu-san! You're quite handsome. Maybe if we put you in an apron…"

It was no joke. Deathberry was dead serious.

000

The swish of the broom against the kitchen floor nauseated Zangetsu. So did the rough, dark braid his rough, dark hair had been forced into. He wore a white T-shirt instead of his edgy black coats, and the blue straps of the laced apron fell down his chest before joining the apron main at his waist. His legs were bare. Deathberry said he liked them that way.

He was whipped.

Buddha help, was he whipped.

The brunet stopped to check the soup when the ash haired hollow burst in through the French doors leading to the balcony.

"Come outside!"

The 'danna' rule _**had **_been enforced, so Zangetsu worked hard to avoid addressing Deathberry directly. He gave a staccato bow trapped between subservient and sarcastic before heading towards the impatient fiend.

"Zangetsu-san!" funny, 'wifey' had refused to sit on the zanpakutou's shoulders so Deathberry still afforded him this ironic respect. "So slow!" He grabbed the brunet's hand to tug him onto the balcony. "Look. The sky!"

Zangetsu looked. The sky! It was…

"Yellow," he puzzled, turning back to the hollow, "As it's been the last few weeks."

As it should be. Ichigo had left Rukia in Soul Society—she was safe, but she wasn't with him, was she? At first Zangetsu had wondered why the boy hadn't fought for her. He'd realized later, when wandering through the heart building. He would fight for Rukia, of course he would—but only if she wanted him to. She'd wanted to stay in Soul Society in a real way, not like when she'd resigned herself to the execution. The buttercup skies were also a reflection of Ichigo's worry at how Deathberry burst out of him during fights, and how ashamed he was at not being strong enough to protect his friends. It was an impotent, droopy color. Zangetsu didn't like it much but it was better than rain and kept Deathberry out of their home for hours on end: he liked staring broodingly into that terrible sky.

"Zangetsu-san, are you blind? Look closer."

He looked again. He looked closer. There _**was **_something in the sky…there, behind that swath of cloud.

"Blue…"

Deathberry gripped his arm as though he wanted to rip it off. "Yes! Yes! You know why? Rukia-chan's back. Ecstatic, ain't he? Just by breathing and being that girl wipes away his worries. Oh, now we're getting somewhere."

"What are you planning?" Zangetsu gripped back. "Danna."

Deathberry grinned in a wild, catastrophic way. "I bet you'd like to find out, Zangetsu-san? Nothing. Go back inside."

Good grief. Why hadn't Zangetsu nipped this poison nettle in the bud? He slid his arm free of the hollow's grasp and stood a bit longer. Berry-tan offered him a less reassuring grin.

"Seriously, Zangetsu-san. Do you want me to show you the way?"

The broom was waiting decorously for him. Zangetsu swayed with it and mulled.

Being a wife to Deathberry had not meant what Zangetsu feared it would mean. This sort of game was no sad mockery of marriage—they called it animal _**husbandry, **_didn't they? This was a taming of the beast. Most of the time it was mild humiliation to remind Zangetsu who was top dog—the chores, the clothes. There was no sex, thank heavens; that's not to say the nights were dull. They kept each other company, talking and merely sitting. Deathberry was a noisy sort of man. He talked not only with his voice but his witty eyes, his quick hands. Even his chest with its rises and falls of breath seemed to chatter. Zangetsu was often outpaced; he often fell into an exhausted, hoarse silence (as a man of few words, exceeding his limit hurt his inexperienced throat) to listen to his hollow husband go on and on.

"You find no dearth of topics, do you, danna?"

"Stop staring so avidly when I speak, okay? You'll make me blush."

One day not long after the end of yellow sky, the hollow brought home a basket of ripe, red strawberries.

"Growin' right up and down the street, aren't they? Fat juicy bastards had my mouth waterin' the moment I saw 'em. Gorgeous, ain't they, Zangetsu-san?"

They washed them in the sink together, left the green bits in to hold them by, and gathered the fruit into a great glass bowl before going out to sit on the balcony.

"What do these mean, though?" Zangetsu asked quietly as he took a bite. Sweet, gushing citrus cleansed his mouth with its holy touch, and he thought he wouldn't mind if the fruit was poison.

"Shouldn't you be able to tell?" Deathberry's grey lips were red from the succulent flesh. "You're his sword, ain't ya."

But Zangetsu couldn't tell what the coming of berries to Ichigo's mind might mean, which peeved him some. "Maybe it's love," he took a stab at it, "These are supposed to be romantic, after all."

Deathberry was dismissive of this theory. "The heart building would've gone nuts if that was the case. I think they're gay—maybe it's his latent homosexuality asserting itself."

Zangetsu laughed so much at this that the hollow had to pelt him with strawberries to get him to stop. The old man gathered the fallen fruit on his knees and put them aside to wash.

"Do you think it's an identity thing? Do you think he's trying to find himself?" Deathberry frowned, "Like, he's confused as to if he's me or him?"

"Not a chance. Ichigo's never had those kind of doubts. He sees you not as a part of himself but as a squatter in his mind." Zangetsu was brisk about it. "Besides, he hates associating his name with strawberries. No, this isn't about you."

Deathberry delivered a stunning, rueful smile. "You sure know how to crush my sense of self-importance, Zangetsu-san."

"It's the only part of you I stand a chance at crushing," the brunet said fairly.

Deathberry turned somber at those words and contemplated the berry he'd just bit into.

"Given half the chance, Zangetsu-san, would you kill me?"

It was a difficult question. Yes—Ichigo would have a safer, happier life for it. No—Zangetsu would be all alone because of it. Yes—Deathberry was dangerous. No—Zangetsu was growing fond of courting danger.

Yes—the apron would go.

No—so would the fun.

"Zangetsu-san, would you?"

"I think it's hormones," he dodged, "The springtime of his youth."

Deathberry took another bite from his enormous strawberry and stood up, chewing.

"Yes, he said, "I didn't think so."

The blue sky darkened into a long evening of the soul.

000

The sound of his own dry retching over the kitchen sink nauseated Zangetsu. It had snuck up on him like Deathberry on the day of his defeat. The old man had been rinsing the dishes from their lunch when Deathberry's laugh had reverberated around the spacious apartment and the rest of the big, empty head (further insult to Ichigo!) before coming to this. His fingers gripped the edge of the counter and sweat dripped from his nose as he made rasps of self-loathing.

The skies had been peculiar the last week or so. Indigo ink would give way to haunted sunsets before ominous thunderclouds like a troll's purple heart hovered, threatening rain. Later a full bodied cyan resignation—sulky and grim—would reign briefly. The hollow knew what was going on; Zangetsu saw it in the cruel curl of his lips. However he wouldn't share information with the brunet and so Zangetsu retched in ignorance.

Deathberry couldn't hide everything, though.

He couldn't hide the fact that Ichigo was here.

Zangetsu could feel his reiatsu. Usually it was the backdrop, he wouldn't notice it, but now it was finely concentrated just beyond the kitchen window. It was calling to him. Ichigo wanted his sword, and Zangetsu was compelled to obey, to fly to the boy's hand and be raised to cut down opponents but…

He was boxed.

Deathberry was stronger than him, Deathberry had locked him in. Zangetsu rattled the kitchen door, desperate to even go into the other rooms and watch the fight but he couldn't. He peered greedily through the window above the stove but the damned hollow had blocked it by putting the chaise-longues against the wall.

Zangetsu stepped back, kicked the breakfast table over and swore and swore and swore.

The wait was unbearable—what more could be said about it? Apprehension and frustration settled heavily on Zangetsu's chest and his throat felt thorny, with blood dripping to his stomach.

There was a _**fight **_outside.

It would decide his fate.

He was wholly, hatefully unable to do anything about it. Both Ichigo and Deathberry were wielding swords but neither had Zangetsu on their side. And to think of it…if he had the option, if he was outside; whose side would he pick?

Ichigo's. Definitely Ichigo's.

…Unless, of course, he chose Deathberry.

This was so aggravating! It didn't bear thinking about. Zangetsu wanted to _**know **_what was happening. Would Ichigo win?

What if the hollow won.

There would be no need for Zangetsu's company. Not that his company had been so scintillating anyway; he'd never been a great conversationalist. He wished he'd been more fascinating, and then asked himself what for. Self-preservation? Insurance against Deathberry's bloodlust? Or did he want to make a good impression on the hollow?

Well now that _**was **_a perilous line of thought.

Zangetsu gave up thinking in favor of throwing himself against the door and railing at it the best he could. It remained mutely defiant for another hour. At the end of this time he felt a surge in Ichigo's reiatsu; a drop in Deathberry's, after which everything went quiet.

The door shattered belatedly from the blows he'd dealt it and Zangetsu was dumbstruck for only a second before he began his sprint through the apartment and out the main door. He plummeted down the stairs but was so impatient with his pace that he forced a window on the fifteenth landing and leapt down fourteen storeys. His apron billowed, reminiscent of his old clothes and Zangetsu tugged it off—the shirt too—so that when his bare feet hit the ground he was bare all over his body. As he pounded pavement, though, his black coats reappeared impressively on his strengthening frame; a phenomenon that offered him little comfort because he knew it meant Deathberry was weak once more. The hollow's reiatsu told him which building to lunge into (ironically, it was the one that housed Ichigo's fears) and that Deathberry was on the terrace. Alive, for now. Zangetsu dived for the elevator and regretted it as the dark grille clattered slowly shut. He stamped his feet restlessly as he rose, his breath coming out in short, desperate puffs.

It was nauseating this time too, but for different reasons.

Final floor! The brunet burst out of the elevator and skidded to a halt, turning his head this way and that to look for a path to the terrace. Spotting a dingy stairwell he careened towards it, his hair unraveling from its braid. A gust greeted him when he wrenched the door to the terrace open, Deathberry's blood laced through the wind.

He was cold and he was still.

Zangetsu gathered him up in his arms and said:

"No."

000

The sizzle of meat on pan pleased Zangetsu. It pleased him still more that he wasn't the one slaving over the stove; Deathberry was.

(Shortening a story is like this: King Ichigo held back from executing his rebellious horse and time healed him. Deathberry was greatly weakened, though, so now he was the wife.)

The hollow made a better cross-dresser than Zangetsu. Unlike the brunet's strange uniform, Deathberry wore a yukata and had girlish amber ornaments in his ashen hair. Another important difference was that Deathberry mustered far more enthusiasm for his status than Zangetsu had.

"Danna-sama! Please pass me plates to put the meat on."

"Berry-tan," Zangetsu said, because really that name was too cute to escape regular use, "You don't have to call me that."

The fiend laughed as he set the table. "It's suitable for someone who responds to the name Berry-tan. Don't you think I made a good wife? I'm definitely better at it than you were."

"You shouldn't be so proud of that."

Deathberry sat, unexpectedly, on Zangetsu's lap. He put his forehead against the brunet's and said, "Zangetsu no danna, haven't you learnt? Whatever my place is, I'll bear the mantle well. You should watch out, though. Given half the chance, I'd make you my bride again."

A breathless laugh he laughed again at the look on Zangetsu's face, and then dinner was served.

000

Deathberry's desperate pants pleased Zangetsu too. He wasn't as considerate a husband as the hollow had been, and they were not strangers anymore to be averse to a bit of playful sex. Boredom was the ultimate aphrodisiac.

The brunet curved over his conquest, who had the cajones to grin. This was no good; Zangetsu had looked forward to those little pants and moans. Time to up the torture. He let his fingers do the walking, and Deathberry did the talking.

"Zangetsu-sa—ah! Nngh…"

Okay, forget that. If Zangetsu restrained himself any longer he would be the one writhing for a little touch, a little kiss. He shoved his nose into the hollow of the hollow's neck and asked.

"Are you ready? Here I come."

Burning passion couldn't blind Deathberry to the idiocy of those lines.

"Danna-sama! H-how lame…just gimme…"

On the table next to the sofa atop which they conducted their love affair there was an unfinished bowl of ripe, red strawberries. They too were an aphrodisiac. In fact, Zangetsu wouldn't guess till several days later but shall I divulge? He'd been right when trying to duck Deathberry's soul searching query. The strawberries _**were **_the result of hormones. It _**was **_the springtime of Ichigo's youth, and the residents of his mind were reaping the rich rewards.

Outside the sky was a pure, snowy white as Ichigo worried about shit above and beyond a fifteen-year-old's normal spectrum of trouble. A friend in Hueco Mundo weighed heavily in his heart but the people in his head were least bothered.

No, that wasn't fair. Zangetsu _**did **_care, and so did Deathberry. Right now, though, it wasn't their concern. The weather in this big, empty head (poor Ichigo) was always of interest to them, but please.

Give them this moment.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**I was thinking. During "King and Horse" Dark Ichigo says Zangetsu is part of him or something. But I just thought O/o weird. I would've expected some change in Ichigo's sword if Zangetsu had been nommed by the hollow. I then reached the yaoitastic conclusion that DI was lying or meant it in a metaphorical way because, ahem, I am simply a fan of the gay love that way. **

**Also, can I just say? Zangetsu's promise to Ichigo raised my eyebrows sky-high on account of how he's basically saying all the kid's problems can be solved by violence. Slash, hack, maim. **


End file.
